I want to hope that the potential we're seeing here isn't going to be nerfed on PCs because of consoles, but I don't have a ton of hope. Some of the effects are indeed impressive (especially the pixel-accurate displacement. No one else can do that in real time currently), but the water is garbage. The caustics are nice, but you can tell they've abandoned having actual volumetric surface details. The water is completely flat despite having a turbulence source immediately to the right. water in Crysis 1 had polygonal waves, but it looks like they've continued to cheap out in that department again. (Crysis 2 was disappointing in this regard).

Now the particle effects lighting sequence, THAT looked next gen. And the prop-wash affecting the vegetation was great. Crytek needs to work on more details like that, and take advantage of the head-start PC has.

I dunno. Crysis 2 had similar tech demos that looked really fantastic, but when I actually played Crysis 2 on PC at max details, I was disappointed. Too many concessions were made for the console port (not to mention a preposterous implementation of DX11 that was a complete cop-out). I'm hoping they improve with Crysis 3, but it's had to have faith in that franchise anymore considering what they've done.

Yeah, and those effects were outstanding for sure. It's some of the finest looking stuff. But surface area is practically a flat mirror with some minor shader properties. It breaks the illusion. The second I saw the first glimpse of water at 0:15, I couldn't stop myself from frowning. Surface area effects are just... bad. It looks terrible in contrast to everything else around it.

If you can't convince with the surface, I care not for how swell it looks below. Photorealistic immersion is a package deal, all or nothing.

Meh. It apparently can't handle something as simple as a rear-view mirror, and that bird's flapping in the beginning was incredibly unrealistic. Cool toad, though.

Because in the middle of a firefight, the most important thought that crosses my mind is "Hey, that bird's wings don't flap realistically."

But you do bring up a good point. It might not be the most important thing, but it /would/ cross your mind, and that's a distraction that could get you killed. Then it's game over, reload from spawn, all because of a damn bird flapping like a fool.

@Ilriyas YOU'RE IN THE BETA?! Why haven't we talked about this? This would be like me getting Katawa Shoujo 2: Rin's adventure starring Rin and Rainbow Dash and me playing it and never even mentioning it to you. THAT'S WHAT THIS IS LIKE.

But surface area is practically a flat mirror with some minor shader properties. It breaks the illusion. The second I saw the first glimpse of water at 0:15, I couldn't stop myself from frowning. Surface area effects are just... bad. It looks terrible in contrast to everything else around it.

Now that I've seen it, I can't unsee it. That does look pretty bad. This coming from a guy that usually cranks down water detail (old GPUs), though, so maybe that's why I didn't notice it until you pointed it out.